There Is No Justice, There Is Only the Darkness
by AmberMX
Summary: "The first time is an accident. The kid had it coming, really. Or at least that's what he tells himself." / dark!Nico oneshot


**A/N:** The following fic is very dark. Warnings for **implied, referenced or mentioned: child abuse, domestic violence, torture, selfharm, sadism, throwing up, murder, mass murder, slavery, and suicidal thoughts**. Please read at your own discretion.

**Note:** This was originally titled _There Is No Justice, There Is Only the Darkness and That Which Inhabits It_ when I posted it on AO3 last night, but FFN has a rather restrictive character limit for fic titles, apparently, so I had to cut the last part.

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The first time is an accident. The kid had it coming, really. Or at least that's what he tells himself. He catches one of the Ares kids beating up a newcomer behind the arena and just loses it. The poor fucker doesn't even know what hit him and he sure isn't going to go back into Tartarus to bring the little shit back. He had it coming, really, he reasons, but the reality is, he's lost control and he hates it. The camp was nervous around him before, but now, now they're just scared shitless.

It's Bryce Lawrence all over again, but this time, there's witnesses. Chiron just gives him that disappointed look and talks about disciplinary action and Mr D seems nothing short of delighted to have a reason to incinerate him and the looks and the whispers, it's all too much. He snaps, at last, and does what he always does when shit hits the fan.

He runs away.

Arizona is nice this time of year, or maybe Texas. Or a little farther away, Brazil, or Australia, or what about Iceland. It doesn't matter. He makes a dash for the Hades cabin, gathers a handful of essential belongings, and melts into the shadows before anyone can stop him. This has never been his home, and it never will be.

Nobody tries to contact him, or maybe they can't. He's good at disappearing, and even the gods can't find a demigod who doesn't want to be found. A month passes, then two, then six. He barely notices the first year anniversary of his going into hiding. Places start looking the same, people, it's all the same. Sometimes he sleeps under a bridge—the local low-life and wilderness always steer clear of him—, or in a warehouse, or someone's basement. He finds a collapsed part of the Labyrinth once and spends two weeks inside before he finds the exit.

He's been running all his life, running since he was a kid and Percy Jackson came back to break the news about his sister's death to him. This is what he's meant to do, and during the rare occasions when he can't pretend any more that he doesn't miss them, miss Jason, miss Hazel, even Percy, he hides away in some empty house, or an abandoned subway tunnel, and screams till he goes hoarse. One time, he breaks into a liquor store and smashes expensive-looking bottles till the alarm goes off. He doesn't feel any better, but at least he's tired enough to merge with the darkness and find some quiet place before he falls asleep on the spot.

Ω

The second time is an accident as well. Or at least that's what he tries to tell himself. He stumbles out of the shadows and he's really over-exerted himself because he misses his destination by several miles, but that doesn't matter. What does matter is the scene in front of him, the raised hand, the fearful eyes, the scream stuck in a child's throat. The belt. The bruises. He can feel the anger rising up inside of him as the man turns around, starts yelling at him, the kid screams, and he could stop it. Maybe he could. He could stop it. But he doesn't, there's bruises where there should be none, there's a belt and a child whose eyes speak of terror and the rage overtakes him.

Now the man is screaming and the room gets cold, freezing cold, and a window cracks, and someone is screaming and he doesn't realise it's him for a few moments, and then there's a large, black, fuming crack in the floor and the man is gone, never coming back, not from where he's sent him, and he kneels down to calm the small boy, to assure him it's going to be okay, but the kid shies away and that's when he reaches for the closest shadow, in the far corner of the room, and lets the void take him away, wherever to, just away.

It was an accident, he later tries to convince himself. An accident. He can't go around doing that to people. But the shadows in this godforsaken place he's decided to sleep in reach out for him, fondle his mind and cradle him to sleep, and maybe it wasn't an accident. Maybe the man had it coming. Because of the belt, and the bruises, and the fear in the kid's eyes. Maybe it was a fortunate accident, and maybe he doesn't have to feel guilty for it. Maybe everything will be okay if he can just believe that it was an accident.

Ω

The third time is deliberate. What's the point in denying it, really? He didn't expect to stumble upon a rogue demigod legacy trading slaves across the Mediterranean, he just wanted some ship to stowaway on for a night of undisturbed sleep, but here he is, and this time he embraces the anger. The boy snarls and draws a sword and the beasts under his command cheer him on, and he can feel the disgust pool in his stomach as he unleashes the horrors of Tartarus unto his opponent. His victim screams, and then the screams are muffled as the pure darkness that pours out of his every pore swallows him.

He turns to the rest of the crew and fangs are shown and blades drawn. The mob runs at him and he bares his teeth and meets them with pain. Nobody is going to get away today. Not from him. The darkness is his realm and his only and they are going to experience all of it.

He learns a lot that day, things he didn't know he could do. It's astonishing, all the ways the underworld kills. The souls are already dead the moment he lays eyes on them, but it's a long ride to the depths of hell, and he is going to make sure every second of it hurts. This is a court martial, and he is going to sentence them. Every single one of them. None of them will ever see the judges' masks. He decides their fate here and then, and there is no appeal.

He doesn't see the horror in the freed slaves' eyes as they watch him do away with their captors. Or maybe he does, but he doesn't want to see. Later, several hundred miles away, in the belly of a freighter passing through Suez, he curls himself up into a ball and sobs. It's fortunate he doesn't have friends, because the pale white marks on his arms only heal slowly and nobody is around to ask.

Ω

It becomes a habit afterwards, this vigilantism of his. The world is full of opportunities to exert his powers, and every time he does, he gets more numb to the shock afterwards. He takes the disgust and hides it away, deep in himself, embraces the rage, the hatred, the venom flowing through his veins. It's for the better, he tells himself, in those rare moments when he allows himself to doubt. He's making up for all the hurt he's caused by bringing justice.

He doesn't believe it, at night, when the shadows are everywhere and the flickering light of his measly fireplace barely lights up whatever place he has chosen as his residence. He doesn't believe it when he tries to sleep in a dumpster, a sewer, a truck bed. It doesn't help him sleep and it doesn't help make the nightmares stop, but it's all he got, this belief to cling to. He gives in, enjoys the rush of adrenaline and tainted satisfaction when he unleashes the beasts of his realm, and afterwards he throws up in some alleyway and punches the wall until his knuckles bleed.

He knows he gets noticed. The underworld must be in uproar, probably, and he can't imagine them taking too kindly to the steady stream of souls that he condemns into Tartarus, to him defying everything they stand for. But they can't stop him, not when he knows how to run from them. The shadows are eager to hide him, disguise him from divine eyes. If he worries that the darkness is controlling him more than he is controlling it, then he pushes those thoughts aside until he can't anymore, and then he finds himself a place far, far away from people and releases his raw power, into the ground, the trees, the walls, whatever is unfortunate enough to be around. He takes down an entire forest, once, and the guilt he feels at the sight of the dead dryads is indescribable.

The next time he comes across a victim, a criminal on the run, an ordinary murderer, he remembers the dryads and the guilt and the pain. The man's soul is ripped to shreds, not even enough sentience left to suffer hell, and later, when he's halfway across the country, when he collapses from exhaustion after all the darkness has left his body, he tells himself that he's just paying for all the blood on his hands and the trail of dead bodies in his wake. He has to bring justice to absolve himself. It's an awful belief to cling to, but it's all that he has left.

Ω

It's Percy of all people who finds him. He's stopped counting the days, the months, the years. His camp necklace is still around his neck, dirty, sweaty, gritty, unrecognisable, and he's sure he's been away for several years now. They meet by chance, a meaningless settlement in the South, he doesn't even know the state. He's tracking a couple with more blood on their hands than sand in the desert, Percy is tracking a thing with more horns and tentacles than the imagination can picture. Percy sees him first and he drops his sword, in the middle of the street, and then the beast lunges and before Percy can even pick up the sword again, the darkness takes hold of the creature. This one isn't coming back.

And then Percy is running towards him and he reaches out for the shadows to take him away, anywhere, but there's a pleading look in Percy's eyes and he hesitates and then Percy is there and he speaks, or screams, or yells, he can't tell. Percy pleads and argues and then he tries to grab him, Percy speaks about camp and coming home and he is beginning to get fed up and he shakes Percy off and Percy touches him again and he can feel the anger pooling in his stomach—

They never find out how a peaceful little town, in the middle of nowhere, was wiped out. Gas explosion, some say. Hurricane, others assume. The government. The aliens. The Illuminati. Nobody knows. The houses are but dust, the roofs ripped off, the cars flattened. Not enough left of the population to identify anyone. Nobody notices the pen of celestial bronze in the middle of what used to be the main street. Nobody can tell the spot where a young man's tears soaked the sand, where he knelt and begged and screamed and pleaded, over the lifeless body of a former friend.

He runs away after that, never to use his powers again. He runs away, from himself and from death. It's the one thing he can't do, really, he can't leave, not when there's a world full of tormented souls waiting for him. He runs and hides, as far away as he can, and he swears to himself and to the Styx to never use his powers again. But what does a broken oath matter? He has already endured the punishment.

Ω

The first time is an accident. The man had it coming, really. Or at least that's what he tells himself. Again.

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**A/N: **I get to explore the dark sides of characters' personalities way too seldom, and this might just be one of the darkest or the darkest fic I've ever written. I have no clue where this inspiration came from, but I churned the whole thing out in one or two hours. Poor broken Nico, why did I have to do this to him?


End file.
